Beer Cheese Soup

Introduction

First off, anyone who has ever seen my kitchen knows that "clean" is not it's natural state. In the wild, it camouflages itself with particulate food matter and dirty dishes, though it is not certain why considering the lack of dishes in nature. To tame my kitchen, I had to use industrial cleaners and a bullwhip. I live with four other guys, cut me some slack.

So! On to the beer cheese soup. What you'll need:

Ingredients

• 1 cup onion, diced
• 1 cup celery, diced
• 1 cup carrot, diced
• 2 potatoes, 1" diced
• 16 oz sharp cheddar cheese
• 7 cups chicken stock (I bought 2 4 cup boxes of stock)
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 4 tbsp butter
• sausage
• bacon
• very tasty beer
• Wolfmother for a soundtrack
• very blurry picture of the ingredients

I was thinking of substituting oriental mustard powder for the white pepper and then thought better of it. Open up your cooking beer and set it aside. We're going to let it get warm and flat while cooking. Hey! It's a nice day out, enjoy the view while your heart is still pumping.

Prep Work

First off, throw the bacon into a glass dish and set the oven to 350 degrees. Bake the bacon until perfect - I think mine was in for twenty minutes.

While the bacon is cooking, chop up the celery, carrots, onions, potatoes, and cheese. Yeah, I forgot to get a cheese grater and diced the cheese into 1/2" blocks.

Housemate Dave helps by peeling the potatoes! With his teeth. Kidding, mostly.

Add some vegetable oil to a pan and toss in the onions, carrots, and celery. I ground a dash of black pepper over it. Cook until the onions are soft and almost translucent.

When the vegetables are done, set them to the side to cool. Yaay bacon's done! Behold its glory.

Yaay Cutty likes bacon! I'm about to pat off some oil and then chop it up into fine pieces.

Ahh yes, the beer we'll be using. Rogue Brewery's Dead Guy Ale. Happiness in a liquid form.

Now that the veggies are a bit cooler, we can put them in the blender. That's right, you heard what I said, don't pretend like you don't know what's going on up in here. Splash a cup of chicken stock in first, then shovel everything in.

The end result should look something like this:

Appetizing as it is, we must move on. I took about 4 tablespoons of bacon fat from the pan and put it into a tall pot. Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in with it and whisk in the 8 tbsp of flour. This makes a pretty thick mess, so start adding stock as soon as the flour, butter, and fat are smooth.

Stir and add the stock slowly to keep it mixed well. Bring the base up to a boil over medium high heat. Time to add vegetable puree!

Return to a boil. I like a little heat behind my soup, so I used nearly 3 tsp of white pepper, but you can taste the pepper after 2 tsp. Use phantom hands to drop in the cheese so you don't splash boiling stock all over you! While you're at it, toss in the potatoes.

(As a side note, sometimes I cook the potatoes seperately, until they fall apart under a fork's lancing. I've found that the cooked potatoes thicken up the soup a bit more than cooking them in the stock.)

About this time, you should cook up the sausage. Stir the soup every minute or so while the meat cooks. When the sausage is done, cut it up and put it on the pot.

Turn off the heat and pour in the beer. This is going to give off an amazing beer aroma for a little bit, don't be afraid. Let it happen. Just...let it happen, baby.

My dumb ass should have poured the beer into a larger container to go flat. Here you'll see what happens when you're a dumbass like me.

AHH beer foam everywhere! See, this is why I turned off the burner. If it had kept boiling, that goo would be all over my stove right now. I get these bouts of clairvoyance, but only when I'm going to do something stupid. Phew, that was close!

The final product:

My countertops aren't very exciting, so I decided that you'd rather have an action shot. Sinatra loves beer cheese soup and appletinis.

There we go! This made a lot of servings, probably around 10 bowls. It's perfect for football season when all the guys are over. Plus it's relatively simple and I think I spent $30 total and ended up with 5 extra tasty beers to drink while cooking and eating.

Edit: This can also be done with a white fish instead of sausage. Both ways are awesome and heart attack inducing.